This invention relates to batch ticket reading apparatus and more particularly to such apparatus wherein information may be read from a ticket oriented in more than one position and wherein tickets which are properly read are separated from those which have not been properly read.
Sheet material processing apparatus for counting and printing, cutting or otherwise handling sheet material such as letters, bills, currency, tickets and the like have been known. Such machines, for example, may be of the general type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,378,250. Such machines generally operate by means of one or more separator feed rollers which pull single sheets from a stack of material, moves the sheets past a counting or imprinting station and then delivers the sheet material to a stack or bin. In the operation of such sheet handling apparatus the single sheet material whether it be a document, piece of currency or a ticket, generally pass one at a time past the counting or imprinting station.
While such sheet handling devices are capable of counting or imprinting tickets, for example, the function of machine reading of the ticket while it is being processed is desirable in the handling of sales tickets for retail merchandise. Such sales tickets may contain a substantial amount of information in coded machine readable form as well as alphanumeric and eye readable material. Thus it is desirable to have sheet material processing equipment which can singly process information-bearing sheets such as retail sales tickets and read and record the information relating to each sale represented by the ticket.
Problems arise however in the reading and sorting of tickets with respect to the location of the machine readable information on the ticket and the orientation of the ticket as it is stacked in the machine for processing. It is impractical to have sorting of retail sales tickets so that the machine readable code is oriented in the proper direction as the ticket is being processed. For example the ticket may be reversed end-for-end in the stack. Further, such tickets may be stacked upside down wherein the machine readable code faces away from the reading station as the ticket is being processed.
Accordingly it is an object of the present invention to provide a batch ticket reader which can reliably read information from sheet materials such as retail sales ticket.
Another object of the invention is to provide a batch ticket reader of the above character wherein the ticket may be read from more than one orientation as it is passed through the machine.
A further object of the invention is to provide a batch ticket reader of the above character which will reliably separate improperly read tickets from those which have been properly read.
A still further object of the invention is to provide a batch ticket reader of the above character which optionally reads information from the ticket.
Other objects of the invention will in part be obvious and will in part appear hereinafter.
The invention accordingly comprises the features of construction, combinations of elements, and arrangement of parts which will be exemplified in the construction hereinafter set forth, and the scope of the invention will be indicated in the claims.